[R-G] [BillTottenWeblog] Hopebroken and Hopesick

[Bill Totten]

Obama fans need a new start

The penny has dropped: hope alone won't save the world. Time for a fresh
lexicon. And to hope less, demand more

by Naomi Klein

The Guardian (April 17 2009)


All is not well in Obamafanland. It's not clear exactly what accounts
for the change of mood. Maybe it was the rancid smell emanating from the
US treasury's latest bank bailout. Or the news that the president's
chief economic adviser, Larry Summers, earned millions from the very
Wall Street banks and hedge funds he is protecting from re-regulation
now. Or perhaps it began earlier, with Obama's silence during Israel's
Gaza attack.

Whatever the last straw, a growing number of Obama enthusiasts are
starting to entertain the possibility that their man is not, in fact,
going to save the world if we all just hope really hard. This is a good
thing. If the superfan culture that brought Obama to power is going to
transform itself into an independent political movement, one fierce
enough to produce programmes capable of meeting the current crises, we
are all going to have to stop hoping and start demanding.

The first stage, however, is to understand fully the awkward in-between
space in which many US progressive movements find themselves. To do
that, we need a new language, one specific to the Obama moment. Here is
a start.

Hopeover. Like a hangover, a hopeover comes from having overindulged in
something that felt good at the time but wasn't really all that healthy,
leading to feelings of remorse, even shame. It's the political
equivalent of the crash after a sugar high. Sample sentence: "When I
listened to Obama's economic speech my heart soared. But then, when I
tried to tell a friend about his plans for the millions of lay-offs and
foreclosures, I found myself saying nothing at all. I've got a serious
hopeover."

Hoper coaster. Like a roller coaster, the hoper coaster describes the
intense emotional peaks and valleys of the Obama era, the veering
between joy at having a president who supports safe-sex education and
despondency that single-payer healthcare is off the table at the very
moment when it could become a reality. Sample sentence: "I was so
psyched when Obama said he was closing Guantanamo. But now they are
fighting like mad to make sure the prisoners in Bagram have no legal
rights at all. Stop this hoper coaster - I want to get off!"

Hopesick. Like the homesick, hopesick individuals are intensely
nostalgic. They miss the rush of optimism from the campaign trail and
are forever trying to recapture that warm, hopey feeling - usually by
exaggerating the significance of relatively minor acts of Obama decency.
Sample sentence: "I was feeling really hopesick about the escalation in
Afghanistan, but then I watched a YouTube video of Michelle in her
organic garden and it felt like inauguration day all over again".

Hope fiend. With hope receding, the hope fiend, like the dope fiend,
goes into serious withdrawal, willing to do anything to chase the buzz.
Sample sentence: "Joe told me he actually believes Obama deliberately
brought in Summers so that he would blow the bailout, and then Obama
would have the excuse he needs to do what he really wants: nationalise
the banks and turn them into credit unions. What a hope fiend!"

Hopebreak. Like the heartbroken lover, the hopebroken Obama-ite is not
mad but terribly sad. She projected messianic powers on to Obama and is
inconsolable in her disappointment. Sample sentence: "I really believed
Obama would finally force us to confront the legacy of slavery in this
country and start a serious national conversation about race. But now he
never seems to mention race, and he's using twisted legal arguments to
keep us from even confronting the crimes of the Bush years. Every time I
hear him say 'move forward', I'm hopebroken all over again."

Hopelash. Like a backlash, hopelash is a 180-degree reversal of
everything Obama-related. Sufferers were once Obama's most passionate
evangelists. Now they are his angriest critics. Sample sentence: "At
least with Bush everyone knew he was an asshole. Now we've got the same
wars, the same lawless prisons, the same Washington corruption, but
everyone is cheering like Stepford wives. It's time for a full-on hopelash."

In trying to name these various hope-related ailments, I found myself
wondering what the late Studs Terkel would have said about our
collective hopeover. He surely would have urged us not to give in to
despair. I reached for one of his last books, Hope Dies Last (2003). I
didn't have to read long. The book opens with the words: "Hope has never
trickled down. It has always sprung up."

That pretty much says it all. Hope was a fine slogan when rooting for a
long-shot presidential candidate. But as a posture towards the president
of the most powerful nation on earth, it is dangerously deferential. The
task as we move forward (as Obama likes to say) is not to abandon hope
but to find more appropriate homes for it - in the factories,
neighbourhoods and schools where tactics like sit-ins, squats and
occupations are seeing a resurgence.

Political scientist Sam Gindin wrote recently that the labour movement
can do more than protect the status quo. It can demand, for instance,
that shuttered auto plants be converted into green-future factories,
capable of producing mass-transit vehicles and technology for a
renewable energy system. "Being realistic means taking hope out of
speeches", he wrote, "and putting it in the hands of workers".

Which brings me to the final entry in the lexicon.

Hoperoots. Sample sentence: "It's time to stop waiting for hope to be
handed down, and start pushing it up, from the hoperoots".

_____

A version of this column was published in the Nation (www.thenation.com)

www.naomiklein.org

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/apr/17/barack-obama-supporters-naomi-klein/


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